Tactical airborne lasers can be effectively deployed against a wide variety of land based targets. For example, tactical airborne lasers can be used effectively against vehicles, supplies (such as petroleum, oil, and lubricant), aircraft (while on the ground), runways, airfield infrastructure (control towers, hangers, fuel tanks, etc.), buildings, troops, crew-served weapons and ships.
Tactical airborne lasers use a high energy laser (HEL) source. For a high energy laser to be effective, the tactical airborne laser system must utilize some form of beam-control. Beam control is necessary to keep the laser beam properly aligned upon the optics, to correct the wavefront of the beam, and to track targets that are off of the optical axis of the telescope, so that a well focused beam is provided to the target.
When a target is off-axis with respect to the telescope of a tactical airborne laser system, the laser beam can still be focused upon the target without moving the telescope. This is accomplished by instead moving steering mirrors that provide the laser beam to the primary mirror.
However, such contemporary approaches to using steering mirrors to maintain targeting tend to be complex. The can utilize a large number of parts, they can be heavy, and they can be bulky. For example, such contemporary systems require the use of a larger primary mirror. This is necessary to insure that the entire laser beam is incident upon the primary mirror and thus not wasted by missing the primary mirror. Further, as those skilled in the art will appreciate, the use of a larger primary mirror inherently introduces undesirable aberrations.
This use of more components, heavier components, and larger components limits the applicability of such tactical laser systems. This is particularly true in airborne/space applications where complexity, weight, and size are critical parameters.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a high energy laser system that utilizes substantially simplified beam control, such that the high energy laser system is comparatively simple, lightweight, and small.